Edited by Roger Bullock (Fellow, Centre for Social Policy, The Social Research Unit at Dartington, UK) and managed by Miranda Davies, Adoption & Fosteringis a quarterly peer reviewed journal which has been at the cutting edge of debate on childcare issues for over 50 years. It is the only UK journal dedicated to adoption and fostering issues, providing an international forum for a wide range of professionals: academics and practitioners in social work, psychology, law, medicine, education, training and caring for children and young people.

As the official journal of the CoramBAAF Adoption & Fostering Academy, the UK’s leading adoption and fostering charity, the journal supports CoramBAAF’s aims of promoting the highest standards of practice in adoption, fostering and childcare services, to increase public understanding of the issues and to provide an independent voice for children and families, disseminating new research and practice developments, informing and influencing policy-makers, all those responsible for children and young people, and public opinion at large.

In addition to informative and thought provoking articles from around the world, Adoption & Fostering offers regular legal notes and health notes prepared by dedicated practitioners and professionals concerned with the welfare of looked after children and young people in the UK.

Legal notes

Each issue of the journal features around 12 pages of legal notes prepared by experts in England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. These include commentary on specific cases and for Scotland, recent developments and updates in the law.

Health notes

Regular health notes prepared by doctors around the UK cover a range of topics, from evaluating projects and services to reporting on conferences held by the CoramBAAF Health Group.

“Adoption & Fostering Journal is essential reading for all those involved in adoption and fostering, and is read and valued right around the world.”

Gillian Schofield, Professor of Child & Family Social Work, University of East Anglia

“As a practitioner, Adoption & Fostering is always the journal I turn to first. Virtually all the content has immediate relevance. Also, back copies spanning some 40 years provide an invaluable record of how research and practice have developed in the UK and overseas.”

David Pitcher, Family Court Adviser and Children’s Guardian, Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass)

Adoption & Fostering is the only quarterly UK peer reviewed journal dedicated to adoption and fostering issues. Edited by Roger Bullock (Fellow, Centre for Social Policy, The Social Research Unit at Dartington), it also focuses on wider developments in childcare practice and research, providing an international, inter-disciplinary forum for academics and practitioners in social work, psychology, law, medicine, education, training and caring.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Adoption & Fostering will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

Articles may cover any of the following: analyses of policies or the law; accounts of practice innovations and developments; findings of research and evaluations; discussions of issues relevant to fostering and adoption; critical reviews of relevant literature, theories or concepts; case studies.

All research-based articles should include brief accounts of the design, sample characteristics and data-gathering methods. Any article should clearly identify its sources and refer to previous writings where relevant. The preferred length of articles is 5,000-7,000 words excluding references.

Contributions should be both authoritative and readable. Please avoid excessive use of technical terms and explain any key words that may not be familiar to most readers.

Letters to the Editor. Readers' letters should address issues raised by published articles or should report significant new findings that merit rapid dissemination. The decision to publish is made by the Editor, in order to ensure a timely appearance in print.

Book Reviews. A list of up-to-date books for review is available from the journal's Managing Editor.

1.3 Writing your paper

The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

Adoption & Fostering operates a strictly anonymous peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 6-8 weeks of submission.

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.4 Funding

Adoption & Fostering requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Adoption & Fostering encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.

Adoption & Fostering and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the SAGE Author Gateway.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.2 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.

Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the SAGE Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.